Can coronavirus spread via AliExpress packages? Epidemiologist explains

Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar says there is no room for panic in Serbia over a new strain of coronavirus that emerged in China late last year - killing 6 people, while more than 200 have been taken ill so far - but added that checks at our border crossings will be stepped up.

The majority of those infected are in the Chinese city of Wuhan, and the virus has started to spread. It has been officially confirmed that it can be transmitted from human to human.

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Although almost no one from Serbia travels to this Chinese city, there is concern that, because of the popularity of China's AliExpress e-commerce platform in our country, there is the possibility that the virus might arrive - by mail.

Is such a thing even possible?

"No, because China is far away. These items travel for several weeks, the virus cannot survive that long. The length of time it survives primarily depends on the conditions - whether it's damp, dark, and on what surface it finds itself, because it's easier to survive on plastic than on metal. In the case of this virus, it'ss a matter of hours - it can survive for several hours on a surface, but not for several days," epidemiologist Zoran Radovanovic points out in his statement for Telegraf.

As he says, the seventh, as yet unnamed coronavirus strain is less dangerous than SARS, although it is quite similar.

"SARS emerged in 2002 and the mortality rate was 10 percent. MERS appeared in 2012, and as many as a third of those infected died. Here, for the time being, the mortality rate is less than 2 percent. Interestingly, there are similarities - the same clinical picture for all three viruses, so, only when you take samples for further analysis can you make a diagnosis."

Epidemiologist Radmilovic points out that coronaviruses usually cause a cold that is not fatal. As soon fatalities appear as a consequence of this type of virus, it means that the disease is much more serious.

"The core question is, whether the virus will mutate. It is alarming that one patient managed to infect 14 healthcare professionals. This is probably an exception, as the infection rate is much lower at the moment. For example, when SARS was current, an infected person could infect three people, while the measles situation was even worse - one patient managed to infect as many as 15," the epidemiologist told Telegraf.

(Tara Tomovic/Telegraf.rs)